By YAAKOV LAPPIN03/01/2013 01:39 Defense source tells 'Post' Israel not aware of any delay in delivery of jets to IAF scheduled for 2015 despite reports of technical setbacks.

Senior defense sources said on Thursday they expected no delay in the delivery of the first F-35 fighter jets, despite reports from the US in recent days on spats between the Pentagon and the plane’s makers, and technical setbacks.

“We are not aware of any delay,” one source told The Jerusalem Post.

The Israel Air Force is scheduled to receive the first jets in 2015, and will form a squadron of F-35s at the Nevatim Airbase in the Negev desert, which currently houses F-16 squadrons and C-130 Hercules transport planes.

The F-35 will ensure Israel’s regional qualitative edge in the first quarter of the 21st century, defense chiefs say.

Israel signed a $2.75 billion deal to purchase a squadron of 20 F-35s from Lockheed Martin, and has received Pentagon approval to purchase an additional 55 at a later date.

Last week, the Pentagon suspended the flights of all F-35 fighter planes after a routine inspection revealed a crack on a turbine blade of a test aircraft in California.The F-35 program office said it was too early to know the fleet-wide impact of the engine issue, but it was suspending all flights until an investigation into the issue was completed.

It said it was working closely with Pratt & Whitney, the United Technologies Corp unit which builds the engine for the fighter, and Lockheed Martin Corp, the prime contractor for the radar-evading warplane, to ensure the integrity of the engine and return the F-35 fleet to flight as soon as possible.

On Wednesday, the Pentagon program chief for the F-35 slammed commercial partners Lockheed Martin and Pratt & Whitney on Wednesday, accusing them of trying to “squeeze every nickel” out of the US government and failing to see the long-term benefits of the project.

US Lt.-Gen. Christopher Bogdan made the comments during a visit to Australia, where he has sought to convince lawmakers and generals to stick to a plan to buy 100 of the jets, an exercise complicated by the second grounding of the plane this year and looming US defense cuts.

SWEET IS SLEEP TO ME AND EVEN MORE TO BE OF STONE,WHILE THE WRONG AND SHAME ENDURE.TO BE WITHOUT SIGHT OR SENSE IS A MOST HAPPY CHANGE FOR ME,THEREFORE DO NOT ROUSE ME. HUSH! SPEAK LOW. I said to God "I hate Life" God replied "Who asked you to love life? Just Love me & life will be beautiful" Living in favorable and unfavorable conditions is PART of living. Smiling in all those conditions is ART of living."Anytime you think you need to protect God, you can be sure you're worshiping an idol"

By Tony Capaccio - Feb 28, 2013 Flights of Lockheed Martin Corp. (LMT)’s F-35 will be allowed to resume, the U.S. Defense Department said, ending a suspension that grounded the fleet after the discovery of a cracked engine blade in one of the stealth jets.The affected engine had been subjected to “prolonged exposure to high levels of heat and other operational stresses” in testing, the Pentagon F-35 office said today in a statement.Inspections of other F-35 fighter jets didn’t find any other “cracks or signs of similar engine stress,” and no redesign will be needed for the engines built by United Technologies Corp. (UTX)’s Pratt & Whitney unit, according to the statement.The F-35, the Pentagon’s most expensive weapons program, has been plagued by a costly redesign, bulkhead cracks, excessive weight and delays in software that have helped put it seven years behind schedule. The cost of the program’s 2,443 aircraft is now estimated at $395.7 billion, a 70 percent increase since 2001.The flight suspension was ordered Feb. 22 after a routine engine inspection revealed a crack in a turbine blade on a test aircraft at Edwards Air Force Base in California. The grounding was undertaken as a “precautionary measure,” the Pentagon’s F- 35 office said that day in a statement.The decision to end the suspension came after Pratt & Whitney recommended that flight operations be restored. Eighth Batch

Lockheed Martin, the world’s largest defense contractor, earlier today received a $333.7 million down payment to buy initial parts, components and materials for an eighth batch of F-35s, as the Pentagon locked in the funds hours before automatic U.S. budget cuts were set to take effect.The action exempts the funds from the across-the-board spending reductions known as sequestration that begin tomorrow, because Pentagon officials have said contracts with obligated dollars won’t be cut or terminated. The eighth contract calls for 35 jets, including four aircraft for the U.K. and two for Norway, according to a Pentagon statement.

SWEET IS SLEEP TO ME AND EVEN MORE TO BE OF STONE,WHILE THE WRONG AND SHAME ENDURE.TO BE WITHOUT SIGHT OR SENSE IS A MOST HAPPY CHANGE FOR ME,THEREFORE DO NOT ROUSE ME. HUSH! SPEAK LOW. I said to God "I hate Life" God replied "Who asked you to love life? Just Love me & life will be beautiful" Living in favorable and unfavorable conditions is PART of living. Smiling in all those conditions is ART of living."Anytime you think you need to protect God, you can be sure you're worshiping an idol"

As sequestration hysteria grips Washington, top uniformed officials at the Pentagon have joined Defense Secretary Leon Panetta in warning that across-the-board spending cuts due to take effect on March 1 will cripple the American military and endanger the effectiveness of soldiers, sailors, and pilots.General Ray Odierno, the Army’s chief of staff, has declared that the cuts—a $46 billion reduction in the Pentagon’s fiscal 2013 budget, barring a last-minute political compromise—could curtail training for 80 percent of ground forces. The Navy has delayed the deployment of an aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf, leaving just one of the gigantic vessels in that volatile region, even as tensions continue simmering with Iran. The Air Force is talking about slashing flying hours, leaving two-thirds of its pilots below an acceptable level of readiness. And so on.Flapdoodle. The military is manufacturing a crisis to protect its wasteful, bloated, poorly designed budget. Sequestration, which mandates no-thought, across-the-board spending cuts, is a dumb way to force fiscal discipline. But there’s an alternative, at least at the Pentagon. Panetta and the generals could say to Congress: We accept that you politicians have backed yourselves into a corner and budgets have to come down. But let us point out several big-ticket items we can erase, rather than putting this process on autopilot.A devastating series by our colleagues at Bloomberg News shows that “the defense budget contains hundreds of billions of dollars for new generations of aircraft carriers and stealth fighters, tanks that even the Army says it doesn’t need and combat vehicles too heavy to maneuver in desert sands or cross most bridges in Asia, Africa, or the Middle East.” Read this comprehensive expose and weep. Or read it as an implicit road map for how to shrink the military in a rational way.For the benefit of harried members of Congress and their staff, not to mention the president and his aides, here are five ideas for major Pentagon budget cuts that would actually improve the national defense by instilling a new spirit of budget discipline:1. Ground the glitch-ridden F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program. The F-35 was supposed to produce state-of-the-art stealth jets. It is seven years behind schedule and 70 percent over cost estimates. At almost $400 billion, the F-35 has become the most expensive weapons system in U.S. history and one that offers only marginal improvements over existing aircraft, according to Barry Blechman, co-founder of the Stimson Center, a nonprofit policy institute in Washington. (On Friday, the Pentagongrounded its nascent 51-plane fleet of F-35s after discovering a cracked engine blade in one jet.) The F-35 is “worth killing, particularly given its technical problems,” Blechman said. “Putting the F-35 into production years before the first flight test was acquisition malpractice,” Frank Kendall, the Pentagon’s acquisition undersecretary, said in February 2012. So, um, let’s do something about it, Frank.2. While we’re at it, how about parking the Ground Combat Vehicle? With wind-downs in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Army’s strength is due to decline by some 72,000 by 2017. Still, we’re poised to spend as much as $32 billion to buy 1,904 new Ground Combat Vehicles, tank-like replacements for the Bradley Fighting Vehicle. What the Army actually needs is improved, smaller vehicles to get modest-sized forces into trouble spots with greater alacrity. The 70-ton Ground Combat Vehicle won’t be easily transportable by air or sea, raising questions about “how quickly it could be deployed in the event of a conflict,” according to a report (PDF) issued in January by the Congressional Research Service.3. On the topic of Army gas-guzzlers: Even the generals admit that they don’t want or need an updated version of the familiar M1 combat tank. The M1 was originally built to face off against Soviet tanks in a land war in Europe, which thankfully never happened. Congress, however, intends to keep doling out billions to gut and renovate old M1s. That makes no sense.4. Dock the Littoral Combat Ship. The Navy is building two versions of the troubled vessel that was once billed as a low-cost, versatile coastal patrol ship. The LCS hasdoubled in price, to more than $440 million a ship. Evaluators have determined that its guns aren’t effective, meaning it might not survive in combat.5. Excess bureaucracy must go. “One need only spend 10 minutes walking around the Pentagon or any major military headquarters to see excess and redundancy,” former Defense Secretary Robert Gates said in September at an event organized by the Center for Strategic & International Studies in Washington. He should know. As defense chief in 2009, he culled 20 weapons systems he thought unnecessary or too expensive, including the F-22 fighter. One place to start thinning the bureaucracy: the staff of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. That office has more than tripled in manpower, to 4,244 in 2012 from 1,313 in 2010, according to the Pentagon’s annual manpower report. (Fewer bureaucrats means fewer memos and fewer meetings. Win-win-win.)Why is sensible military budgeting so difficult? Because lawmakers, including small-government Republicans, protect defense business in their home states with the ferocity of Spartans. Even if the Pentagon offered up the cuts we’ve outlined here, Congress would almost certainly reject them. The senators and representatives don’t have the political courage to face voters and tell them that the republic simply does not need the weapon under construction in their hometown.Consider the F-35. Primarily made by Lockheed Martin (LMT), the plane has 1,300 suppliers in 45 states supporting 133,000 jobs, according to Lockheed. “It’s got a lot of political protection,” according to Winslow Wheeler, director of the Project on Government Oversight’s Center for Defense Information in Washington. “Very, very few members of Congress are willing to say this is an unaffordable dog and we need to get rid of it.”So rather than making strategic spending reductions that might produce a leaner, more effective military, sequestration will result in fewer pilot training hours and under-prepared soldiers. The generals light their hair on fire, and lawmakers protect the pork. Ah, democracy.

Fatal flaws within the cockpit of the US military’s most expensive fighter jet ever are causing further problems with the Pentagon’s dubious F-35 program, Israel's future combat aircraft.A new report from the Pentagon warns that any pilot that boards the pricey aircraft places himself in danger without even going into combat.In a leaked memo reported by the RT news agency, a Pentagon official prefaces a report on the F-35 by cautioning that even training missions cannot be safely performed on board the aircraft at this time.“The training management system lags in development compared to the rest of the Integrated Training Center and does not yet have all planned functionality,” the report reads in part.

“The out-of-cockpit visibility in the F-35A is less than other Air Force fighter aircraft,” one excerpt reads.Elsewhere, the report includes quotes from pilots commenting after test missions onboard the aircraft: “The head rest is too large and will impede aft (rear) visibility and survivability during surface and air engagements,” said one. “Aft visibility will get the pilot gunned (down) every time” in dogfights, remarked another.“Aft visibility could turn out to be a significant problem for all F-35 pilots in the future,” the Pentagon admits.In one chart included in the report, the Pentagon says there are eight crucial flaws with the aircraft that have raises serious red flags within the Department of Defense. The plane’s lack of maturity, reduced pilot situational awareness during an emergency and the risk of the aircraft’s fuel barriers catching fire are also cited, as is the likelihood of a pilot in distress becoming unable to escape his aircraft during an emergency.The Pentagon report described flaws as “unacceptable for combat or combat training.”Yedioth Aharonoth reported that jet makers Lockheed Martin stated they are aware of the problems and that some have already been solved, adding that the aircraft's maintenance and operation are being improved. The latest news regarding the F-35s comes less than one month after a separate incident forced the Department of Defense to ground their entire arsenal of fighter jets. In February, jet makers Lockheed Martin issued a statement acknowledging that a routine inspection on a test plane turned up cracked turbine blade.Each F-35 fighter jet is valued at $238 million and, according to recent estimates, the entire operation will cost the country $1 trillion in order to keep the jets up and running through 2050.

That high price tag has given several countries cold feet about the jet. Last week, Canada pulled out of a deal to buy 65 F-35s over fears that the aircraft could be too expensive to run. Italy reduced its purchase to 90 F-35s from an initial 131, and even the US has delayed some of its purchases.Israel has agreed to purchase 25 of the new fighter jets, marked F-35I, which are to become operational in 2016.

SWEET IS SLEEP TO ME AND EVEN MORE TO BE OF STONE,WHILE THE WRONG AND SHAME ENDURE.TO BE WITHOUT SIGHT OR SENSE IS A MOST HAPPY CHANGE FOR ME,THEREFORE DO NOT ROUSE ME. HUSH! SPEAK LOW. I said to God "I hate Life" God replied "Who asked you to love life? Just Love me & life will be beautiful" Living in favorable and unfavorable conditions is PART of living. Smiling in all those conditions is ART of living."Anytime you think you need to protect God, you can be sure you're worshiping an idol"

The costliest weapons system in U.S. history will face only a glancing blow from the sequester.

By RAJIV CHANDRASEKARAN The Washington Post

EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. - With an ear-ringing roar, the matte-gray fighter jet streaked down Runway 12 and sliced into a cloudless afternoon sky over the Florida Panhandle. To those watching on the ground, the sleek, bat-winged fuselage soon shrank into a speck, and then nothing at all, as Marine Capt. Brendan Walsh arced northward in America's newest warplane, the F-35 Lightning II.

The F-35 has features that make pilots drool. It is shaped to avoid detection by enemy radar. It can accelerate to supersonic speeds. One model can take off and land vertically. Onboard electronic sensors and computers provide a 360-degree view of the battlefield on flat-panel screens, allowing pilots to quickly identify targets and threats.

But its greatest strength has nothing to do with those attributes. The Defense Department and Lockheed Martin, the giant contractor hired to design and build the plane, also known as the Joint Strike Fighter, have constructed what amounts to a budgetary force field around the nearly $400 billion program.

Although it is the costliest weapons system in U.S. history and the single most expensive item in the 2013 Pentagon budget, it will face only a glancing blow from the sequester this year. And as the White House and Congress contemplate future budgets, those pushing for additional cuts may find it difficult to trim more than a fraction of the Pentagon's proposed fleet, even though the program is years behind schedule and 70 percent over its initial price tag.

The reasons for the F-35's relative immunity are a stark illustration of why it is so difficult to cut the country's defense spending. Lockheed Martin has spread the work across 45 states -- critics call it "political engineering" -- which in turn has generated broad bipartisan support on Capitol Hill. Any reduction in the planned U.S. purchase risks antagonizing the eight other nations that have committed to buying the aircraft by increasing their per-plane costs. And senior military leaders warn that the stealthy, technologically sophisticated F-35 is essential to confront Iran, China and other potential adversaries that may employ advanced anti-aircraft defenses.

The biggest barrier to cutting the F-35 program, however, is rooted in the way in which it was developed: The fighter jet is being mass-produced and placed in the hands of military aviators such as Walsh, who are not test pilots, while the aircraft remains a work in progress. Millions more lines of software code have to be written, vital parts need to be redesigned, and the plane has yet to complete 80 percent of its required flight tests. By the time all that is finished -- in 2017, by the Pentagon's estimates -- it will be too late to pull the plug. The military will own 365 of them.

By then, "we're already pregnant," said Air Force Lt. Gen. Christopher Bogdan, who oversees F-35 development for the Pentagon.When the F-35 finishes testing, "there will be no yes-or-no, up-or-down decision point," said Pierre Sprey, who was a chief architect of the Air Force's F-16 Fighting Falcon. "That's totally deliberate. It was all in the name of ensuring it couldn't be canceled."

The Pentagon has long permitted equipment to be produced while it is still being tested, with the intent of getting cutting-edge gear to warriors more quickly, but senior military officials said the F-35 takes the approach to new extremes. Doing so has served as more than a hedge against cuts - it has also driven up the overall price. The 65 aircraft that already have been built, and those that will be assembled over the next few years, will require substantial retrofits that could cost as much as $4 billion as problems are uncovered during testing, the officials said.

Initial tests already have yielded serious problems that are forcing significant engineering modifications. The entire fleet was grounded earlier this year because of a crack in the fan blade in one jet's engine. The Marine Corps' version has been prohibited from its signature maneuver -- taking off and landing vertically -- because of a design flaw. And the Navy model has not been able to land on an aircraft carrier because its tail hook, an essential feature to alight aboard a ship, needs to be redesigned. The Pentagon's top weapons tester issued a scathing report on the F-35 this year that questioned the plane's reliability and warned of a "lack of maturity" in performance.

When the F-35 program was first approved by the Pentagon, Lockheed Martin said it could develop and manufacture 2,852 planes for $233 billion. The Pentagon now estimates the total price tag at $397.1 billion. And that is for 409 fewer planes.

The overall program is almost four times more costly than any other weapons system under development. Taxpayers have already spent $84 billion on the plane's design and initial production. By contrast, the production of 18,000 B-24 bombers during World War II cost less than $60 billion, in inflation-adjusted dollars.

To the plane's backers, including senior leaders of the Air Force and Marine Corps, the benefit is worth the cost. Unlike the infantry, which still accepts battlefield casualties as part of war, military aviators have grown accustomed to a different risk calculus since the 1991 Persian Gulf War, when U.S. warplanes quickly established air superiority over Iraq with minimal losses: They want to ensure that, whatever the future conflict, their planes are packed with enough offensive and defensive measures to accomplish the mission and avoid getting shot down.

"This aircraft reinforces the way Americans go to war. ...We don't want to win 51-49. We want to win 99 to nothing," said Lt. Gen. Frank Gornec, the assistant vice chief of staff of the Air Force. He said he is convinced the F-35 "will become a superstar in the arsenal of the United States."

Many independent defense analysts do not share that conviction. To them, the plane's political engineering and buy-before-you-fly procurement mask deep problems with performance and affordability.

"It was a bait-and-switch operation; we were overpromised benefits and under-promised costs," said Chuck Spinney, a former Pentagon analyst who gained widespread attention in the 1980s for issuing pointed warnings about the military's pursuit of unaffordable weapons. "But by the time you realize the numbers don't add up, you can't get out of the program."

The jet's chronic problems were not secret. But with wars raging in Iraq and Afghanistan, and military budgets growing year over year, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld paid little attention to the program. His successor, Robert M. Gates, took the same approach during his first few years on the job. In 2007, the Defense Department permitted Lockheed to begin producing the fighter -- before the first flight tests had even begun. Frank Kendall, who is now the Pentagon's chief weapons buyer, has called that decision "acquisition malpractice."

With costs rising at supersonic speeds, Gates grasped the dysfunction in 2009. The following year, he withheld $614 million in fees from Lockheed, fired the two-star Marine general in charge of the program and brought in a Navy vice admiral, David Venlet, to clean house. In 2011, Gates placed the Marine plane on probation, warning that it would be killed if problems with its propulsion system were not fixed quickly.

Bogdan, who served as Venlet's deputy until December, when he took charge of the development effort, was astounded by what he found when he delved into the program.

"It was an unimaginable mess," he said.

Bogdan's leverage is limited. Behind his feisty language lies an inescapable reality: The services don't want to shrink their orders, and Congress doesn't want to clip the F-35's wings. For many legislators, the F-35 is as much about employment as it is about air superiority.His best defense against cuts, he figures, involves showing that the long-troubled program can finally meet its targets - and that more reductions will just mean more-expensive aircraft. "We have to understand there are trade-offs every time we cut spending on the F-35," he said. "And none of them are very good."

SWEET IS SLEEP TO ME AND EVEN MORE TO BE OF STONE,WHILE THE WRONG AND SHAME ENDURE.TO BE WITHOUT SIGHT OR SENSE IS A MOST HAPPY CHANGE FOR ME,THEREFORE DO NOT ROUSE ME. HUSH! SPEAK LOW. I said to God "I hate Life" God replied "Who asked you to love life? Just Love me & life will be beautiful" Living in favorable and unfavorable conditions is PART of living. Smiling in all those conditions is ART of living."Anytime you think you need to protect God, you can be sure you're worshiping an idol"

F-35B makes first vertical landing at Yuma
A first for the Corps outside of testing
By Gretel C. Kovach3:51 P.M.MARCH 21, 2013

The first operational squadron of F-35 Joint Strike Fighter jets passed a milestone Thursday in Yuma when the Marine Corps version of the aircraft made its first vertical landing outside of testing.

The first F-35 squadron meant to eventually fly the jet in combat was established in November at Marine Corps Air Station Yuma -- Marine Fighter Attack Squadron (VMFA) 121. Until now the squadron was not allowed to perform the F-35B’s signature feature, its ability to land like a helicopter.

Maj. Richard Rusnok, an F-35B test pilot flying BF-19, conducted the first hover and vertical landing for the squadron, the Marine Corps announced. The commanding officer, Lt. Col. Jeffrey Scott, accompanied him in a second F-35B as a chase aircraft.

Meanwhile, the military has been prepping pilots at the F-35 Integrated Training Center at Eglin Air Force Base. It also tests the aircraft at Edwards Air Force Base, Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Md., and at sea.

Although the Yuma squadron is considered the first operational unit of F-35, the jet is far from ready for combat. The squadron cannot deploy with its F-35Bs until they are upgraded with software revisions not expected until mid-2015.

The Yuma squadron is building up to about 300 Marines and 16 aircraft expected by late 2013. The first F-35 squadron is not expected in San Diego at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar until fiscal 2021.

The $396 billion F-35 program, the Pentagon’s most expensive and by some measures most ambitious ever, has been under development by Lockheed Martin since 2001.

Because of its cost, technical glitches and slipped development timeline, the F-35 program has been continually sniped at for potential curtailment or cancellation. Most recently, a controversial report released this month by the Center for a New American Security, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, suggested scrapping the whole program, as well as phasing out aircraft carriers.

The move to “cancel the always-troubled JSF now while simultaneously extending production of the lower-cost Hornets,” would free $70 million per aircraft for investment in unmanned aerial combat vehicles, or drones, flying off smaller ships, wrote Capt. Henry Hendrix, a career naval flight officer.

The aircraft, also called the Lightning II, was conceived as a relatively affordable “fifth generation” stealth jet to be used across the services, saving money through a common production line, design and parts. Three versions were developed: one for the Marine Corps that would protect the service’s ability to operate from short runways in austere locations and small amphibious ships, an Air Force model using conventional runways, and a Navy version for aircraft carriers.

The F-35B is slated to replace three types of aircraft in the Marine fleet: F/A-18 Hornets, AV-8B Harriers and EA/6B Prowlers.

As the Air Force tests and trains on its version and the Navy awaits delivery of its first production tailhook model, the Marine variant has faced the most performance pressure and danger of cancellation. Critics point to ongoing engineering challenges in the most complicated F-35 variant and say the Corps can do without a vertically landing jet.

The first production model of the Navy’s F-35C carrier variant flew its inaugural sortie in February. It is expected to be delivered to Eglin later this year for Strike Fighter Squadron 101, a training unit.

The first operational squadron of F-35 Joint Strike Fighter jets passed a milestone Thursday in Yuma when the Marine Corps version of the aircraft made its first vertical landing outside of testing.

The first F-35 squadron meant to eventually fly the jet in combat was established in November at Marine Corps Air Station Yuma -- Marine Fighter Attack Squadron (VMFA) 121. Until now the squadron was not allowed to perform the F-35B’s signature feature, its ability to land like a helicopter.

Maj. Richard Rusnok, an F-35B test pilot flying BF-19, conducted the first hover and vertical landing for the squadron, the Marine Corps announced. The commanding officer, Lt. Col. Jeffrey Scott, accompanied him in a second F-35B as a chase aircraft.

Meanwhile, the military has been prepping pilots at the F-35 Integrated Training Center at Eglin Air Force Base. It also tests the aircraft at Edwards Air Force Base, Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Md., and at sea.

Although the Yuma squadron is considered the first operational unit of F-35, the jet is far from ready for combat. The squadron cannot deploy with its F-35Bs until they are upgraded with software revisions not expected until mid-2015.

The Yuma squadron is building up to about 300 Marines and 16 aircraft expected by late 2013. The first F-35 squadron is not expected in San Diego at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar until fiscal 2021.

The $396 billion F-35 program, the Pentagon’s most expensive and by some measures most ambitious ever, has been under development by Lockheed Martin since 2001.

Because of its cost, technical glitches and slipped development timeline, the F-35 program has been continually sniped at for potential curtailment or cancellation. Most recently, a controversial report released this month by the Center for a New American Security, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, suggested scrapping the whole program, as well as phasing out aircraft carriers.

The move to “cancel the always-troubled JSF now while simultaneously extending production of the lower-cost Hornets,” would free $70 million per aircraft for investment in unmanned aerial combat vehicles, or drones, flying off smaller ships, wrote Capt. Henry Hendrix, a career naval flight officer.

The aircraft, also called the Lightning II, was conceived as a relatively affordable “fifth generation” stealth jet to be used across the services, saving money through a common production line, design and parts. Three versions were developed: one for the Marine Corps that would protect the service’s ability to operate from short runways in austere locations and small amphibious ships, an Air Force model using conventional runways, and a Navy version for aircraft carriers.

The F-35B is slated to replace three types of aircraft in the Marine fleet: F/A-18 Hornets, AV-8B Harriers and EA/6B Prowlers.

As the Air Force tests and trains on its version and the Navy awaits delivery of its first production tailhook model, the Marine variant has faced the most performance pressure and danger of cancellation. Critics point to ongoing engineering challenges in the most complicated F-35 variant and say the Corps can do without a vertically landing jet.

The first production model of the Navy’s F-35C carrier variant flew its inaugural sortie in February. It is expected to be delivered to Eglin later this year for Strike Fighter Squadron 101, a training unit.

SWEET IS SLEEP TO ME AND EVEN MORE TO BE OF STONE,WHILE THE WRONG AND SHAME ENDURE.TO BE WITHOUT SIGHT OR SENSE IS A MOST HAPPY CHANGE FOR ME,THEREFORE DO NOT ROUSE ME. HUSH! SPEAK LOW. I said to God "I hate Life" God replied "Who asked you to love life? Just Love me & life will be beautiful" Living in favorable and unfavorable conditions is PART of living. Smiling in all those conditions is ART of living."Anytime you think you need to protect God, you can be sure you're worshiping an idol"

SWEET IS SLEEP TO ME AND EVEN MORE TO BE OF STONE,WHILE THE WRONG AND SHAME ENDURE.TO BE WITHOUT SIGHT OR SENSE IS A MOST HAPPY CHANGE FOR ME,THEREFORE DO NOT ROUSE ME. HUSH! SPEAK LOW. I said to God "I hate Life" God replied "Who asked you to love life? Just Love me & life will be beautiful" Living in favorable and unfavorable conditions is PART of living. Smiling in all those conditions is ART of living."Anytime you think you need to protect God, you can be sure you're worshiping an idol"

The U.S. Navy is carefully backing away from the troubled F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program — and putting in place a backup plan in case the trillion-dollar, jack-of-all-trades stealth jet can’t recover from mounting technical and budgetary woes. So much for the F-35 being too big to fail.

The Navy’s Plan B is still taking shape. But its outlines are coming into view, thanks in large part to recent comments from its top officer. It involves fewer F-35s (the Navy’ll still buy some) and more copies of the older Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet carrier-based fighter, which the Lockheed Martin-built F-35 was originally meant to replace. In the unlikely event the F-35C — the naval version of the radar-evading plane — gets canceled, the Super Hornet could be upgraded past its current shelf life. The twin-engine F/A-18E/F is already getting new weapons. Extra fuel tanks and some stealth treatments could be added as well.

The Joint Strike Fighter program is many billions of dollars over budget and years behind schedule; it probably can’t deliver a single combat-ready warplane to the Navy before 2018. The Navy has long been the least enthusiastic of the Joint Strike Fighter’s U.S. customers, which also include the Air Force and Marines, each with their own unique variant of the F-35. Since the sailing branch has the youngest fighter force in the military, it has the least urgent need for factory-fresh planes.

And the Navy downplays radar-eluding stealth capability in its war plans, instead preferring to fight its way through enemy defenses or fire weapons from a distance. “It is time to consider shifting our focus from platforms that rely solely on stealth to also include concepts for operating farther from adversaries using standoff weapons and unmanned systems — or employing electronic-warfare payloads to confuse or jam threat sensors rather than trying to hide from them,” Adm. Jonathan Greenert wrote last year in the U.S. Naval Institute journal Proceedings.

Greenert, the Navy’s top officer, is a case study in the Navy’s ambivalence about the Joint Strike Fighter. His Proceedings piece was interpreted as a shot across the F-35′s bow, but Greenert denies he meant any such thing. “We need the F-35C; we need its capability,” Greenert said two weeks ago. “It has stealth, range, big payload capacity and an enormous electronic attack (potential).”

But in the same breath, Greenert hinted that the Navy might buy fewer F-35Cs than the current 260 on order. “The question becomes how many do we buy, and how does it integrate into the air wing,” he said, adding that totally canceling the new plane is unlikely for political reasons. “If we bought no Cs that would be very detrimental to the overall program.”

Any reduction in the number of Joint Strike Fighters purchased subtracts from Lockheed’s intricately laid-out production plan, therefore increasing the cost of the remaining jets. However, buying fewer F-35Cs and more improved F/A-18s might be possible without utterly wrecking the Joint Strike Fighter program.

A Pentagon analysis obtained by Reuters found that reducing the Pentagon’s overall acquisition of F-35s from 2,400 copies to just 1,500 would increase the per-unit price of the remaining planes just nine percent. Today a single F-35 costs more than $100 million and an F/A-18 around half that much. Swapping F-35Cs for Super Hornets could save the Navy, and by extension the Pentagon, billions of dollars. Not to mention the Navy is already thinking about a brand-new fighter design to come after both the JSF and Super Hornet.

With improvements, the Super Hornet could equal the Joint Strike Fighter’s combat capability, albeit with different tactics — and, admittedly, this is highly debatable. The Navy is working to make the F/A-18E/F a long-range missile-hauler with some optional stealth qualities, as opposed to the fully stealthy F-35 designed to slip past enemy defenses at close range and drop guided bombs before sneaking away.

In many ways, a shift from the F-35 to an enhanced F/A-18 is the comfortable move for the Navy. The sailing branch has long favored the kind of stand-up fighting the Super Hornet is best at. While current Air Force war plans call for F-22 and B-2 stealth planes to covertly infiltrate enemy territory, the Navy foresees using radio noise-generating Growler jamming planes to overwhelm enemy defenses and allow the Super Hornets to strike.

For the flying branch, adding stealthy F-35s does not mean fundamentally altering its strategy, whereas the Navy would be forced to rewrite decades-old doctrine.

In any event, the Navy can afford to wait and see whether the Joint Strike Fighter overcomes its recent groundings, performance downgrades and other problems. Boeing’s St. Louis Super Hornet factory has enough orders to keep its lights on into 2015, after which the Navy could put into effect some version of its aviation plan B. Or it can cast its lot with the more risky F-35.

SWEET IS SLEEP TO ME AND EVEN MORE TO BE OF STONE,WHILE THE WRONG AND SHAME ENDURE.TO BE WITHOUT SIGHT OR SENSE IS A MOST HAPPY CHANGE FOR ME,THEREFORE DO NOT ROUSE ME. HUSH! SPEAK LOW. I said to God "I hate Life" God replied "Who asked you to love life? Just Love me & life will be beautiful" Living in favorable and unfavorable conditions is PART of living. Smiling in all those conditions is ART of living."Anytime you think you need to protect God, you can be sure you're worshiping an idol"

SWEET IS SLEEP TO ME AND EVEN MORE TO BE OF STONE,WHILE THE WRONG AND SHAME ENDURE.TO BE WITHOUT SIGHT OR SENSE IS A MOST HAPPY CHANGE FOR ME,THEREFORE DO NOT ROUSE ME. HUSH! SPEAK LOW. I said to God "I hate Life" God replied "Who asked you to love life? Just Love me & life will be beautiful" Living in favorable and unfavorable conditions is PART of living. Smiling in all those conditions is ART of living."Anytime you think you need to protect God, you can be sure you're worshiping an idol"

SWEET IS SLEEP TO ME AND EVEN MORE TO BE OF STONE,WHILE THE WRONG AND SHAME ENDURE.TO BE WITHOUT SIGHT OR SENSE IS A MOST HAPPY CHANGE FOR ME,THEREFORE DO NOT ROUSE ME. HUSH! SPEAK LOW. I said to God "I hate Life" God replied "Who asked you to love life? Just Love me & life will be beautiful" Living in favorable and unfavorable conditions is PART of living. Smiling in all those conditions is ART of living."Anytime you think you need to protect God, you can be sure you're worshiping an idol"